Jim Collins: What are the ways in which they communicate? Well, part of it might be the way they articulate something, some of them were again good at that, but that wasn't really their strength. It was by their decisions and by being able to connect the dots of their decisions and most important, by their people decisions.
So let me very briefly, tell a little story about communication, and direction and clarity.
There was a great debate within Gillette a number of years ago, back in the good to great era of Gillette. Coleman Mockler, who had become the Chief Executive, and we may as well go back to Coleman later, because it's interesting how these people become Chief Executives. Coleman's an interesting example on this.
Coleman Mockler, had this great dilemma, are we going to go steel or plastic?
Meaning, you could go on the high end and you could do what was the much more expensive razors, like Mach III or something else very sophisticated, costing maybe tens or hundreds of millions in dollars to develop. Very sophisticated manufacturing, that's one strategy, they call that the steel strategy.
At the other end, you have the plastic strategy --, which says that no, we’re not going to go high end --, we're going to basically turn it into a commodity, we're going to compete with the cheap disposables and that's the plastic strategy and that's where the market’s going.
Now Coleman, while listening to this, he doesn't know what the right answer is at first, because you could actually argue both side of the coin.
And what he did, he brought together, and there was a steel camp and there was a plastic camp. And he would listen to the debates, the arguments and the evidence and so forth, until he gained a point of clarity, which was that the best answer for us is the steel strategy.
Now, how did he communicate this?
He took the proven champion of the steel camp and put him in charge of the razor business.
Is there any ambiguity about where we're going, what the strategy is, which strategy makes the most sense, which strategy won the strategic argument?
In one simple people decision reflecting a strategic direction, he communicated more than if he would have been able to give ten great speeches, or write all these things, that decision.
So you stand back and say, well, was Coleman Mockler a great communicator?
Well, if you look at his speeches, no, he wasn't a great communicator in that sense.
But, you want to ask the question, did he communicate effectively?
Yes, he communicated with great effectiveness through his decisions.
So I was puzzling on your question, it was a great question. Well I thought, Wait a minute. Are they all great communicators, or not?
The answer is, it depends on how you define communication.
Thomas D. Gorman: Right.
Jim Collins: If it's actions supporting clarity of direction and values, they were spectacular communicators.
If it's being able to give the best speech, most of them got pretty bad marks.
Thomas D. Gorman: Right.
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吉姆·柯林斯：那他們用哪些方法溝通呢,？他們闡述想法的方式可以算作是一種溝通能力。他們往往在這方面表現(xiàn)優(yōu)秀,，但這并不是他們的力量所在,。他們是通過(guò)做決策,、通過(guò)將決策中的各個(gè)要點(diǎn)關(guān)聯(lián)起來(lái)，以及最重要的——通過(guò)手下人的決策來(lái)進(jìn)行溝通的,。
讓我來(lái)非常簡(jiǎn)短地講述一個(gè)關(guān)于溝通,、前進(jìn)方向和清晰度的故事。
若干年前,，吉列公司開(kāi)始從優(yōu)秀邁向卓越,，當(dāng)時(shí)公司內(nèi)部有過(guò)一場(chǎng)大辯論?？?tīng)柭?莫克勒時(shí)任吉列首席執(zhí)行官,。我們稍后會(huì)再談到柯?tīng)柭驗(yàn)檫@些人（比如柯?tīng)柭┏蔀槭紫瘓?zhí)行官的故事總是非常有趣,。
柯?tīng)柭?莫克勒當(dāng)時(shí)面臨著極大的困境：我們究竟是要走鋼鐵路線,，還是塑料路線？
意思是說(shuō),，如果走高端路線,，你可以生產(chǎn)比現(xiàn)在的產(chǎn)品昂貴得多的剃須刀，比如鋒速3（MachIII）剃須刀,，以及其它一些非常精致的產(chǎn)品,，可能要花費(fèi)幾千萬(wàn)甚至幾億美元去打造復(fù)雜的產(chǎn)品生產(chǎn)線。生產(chǎn)極為復(fù)雜精致的產(chǎn)品,，這是其中的一種戰(zhàn)略,，他們稱之為鋼鐵戰(zhàn)略。
另一種戰(zhàn)略是塑料戰(zhàn)略,。支持塑料戰(zhàn)略的人認(rèn)為,，我們不走高端路線，要從本質(zhì)上將它變成一種日用品,，我們要與便宜的一次性剃須刀進(jìn)行競(jìng)爭(zhēng),，這就是塑料戰(zhàn)略，也是市場(chǎng)的大勢(shì)所趨,。
柯?tīng)柭?tīng)了這兩方面意見(jiàn),，一開(kāi)始他也不知道正確的答案是什么，因?yàn)檫@就像硬幣的兩面,，各有各的道理,。
他將“鋼鐵派”和“塑料派”叫到一起，讓他們進(jìn)行辯論,，聽(tīng)取他們的論點(diǎn)和證據(jù)等,，直到他得出一個(gè)清晰的觀點(diǎn)，即鋼鐵戰(zhàn)略是最好的答案。
他是如何溝通的呢,？
他找出“鋼鐵派”中公認(rèn)的佼佼者,，讓他負(fù)責(zé)剃須刀業(yè)務(wù)。
對(duì)于何去何從,、采取什么戰(zhàn)略,、什么戰(zhàn)略最行得通，以及什么戰(zhàn)略最終在辯論中獲勝這些問(wèn)題,，還會(huì)有什么不明確的地方嗎,？
對(duì)這位負(fù)責(zé)人的選擇直接反映了今后的戰(zhàn)略方向，柯?tīng)柭倪@種溝通方式,，比做十場(chǎng)出色的演講還要有說(shuō)服力,。
所以,，如果你問(wèn)：柯?tīng)柭?莫克勒是一個(gè)杰出的溝通者嗎,？
如果僅看他的演講水平，他談不上杰出,。
不過(guò)如果你的問(wèn)題是：他溝通得有效嗎,？
我想，是的,，他的決策達(dá)成了非常有效的溝通目的,。
我被你的問(wèn)題難住了，這是個(gè)很好的問(wèn)題,。那么他們是否都是杰出的溝通者呢,？
所以答案是：這取決于你怎樣定義溝通。
高德思：是的,。
吉姆·柯林斯：他們用實(shí)際行動(dòng)清楚地表明了企業(yè)方向和價(jià)值觀,，就這一點(diǎn)來(lái)說(shuō)，他們的溝通能力都非常出色,。
如果要看是否能夠做出最優(yōu)秀的演講,，他們中的大多數(shù)在這方面都比較糟糕。
高德思：對(duì),。 |
